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Column: KU, K-State play nice

Grab your friendship bracelets and a glass of warm milk, because it's football season in Kansas.

Doesn't that get you fired up to watch Kansas and Kansas State on the gridiron this fall? Wait, it doesn't? OK, me neither.

Don't get me wrong — I'm looking forward to Year Two of Bill Snyder's return and Turner Gill's makeover at KU. The upcoming season should have some intriguing story lines, and even if it doesn't, it's still football.

Still, I left Big 12 Media Days thinking this season feels just a little too ... nice.

By all accounts, Gill is an upstanding and virtuous person. He clearly feels a responsibility to his players that goes beyond the football field, and that's an admirable quality.

Listening to Gill at media days, though, he was more Dr. Phil than Phil Fulmer. He told the story of how he brokered peace between a recruit and the player's divorced parents, which ended with Gill saying, "That, to me, is what college football is all about."

Interestingly, that's also what "The Parent Trap" was all about. Doesn't mean I want to watch it every Saturday.

Things can get kind of schmaltzy at K-State, too. While Snyder has never been accused of excess positivity, K-State's football identity remains closely linked to his past success. A sense of nostalgia hangs over the program, and nostalgia can be a dangerous thing.

Everything about last season — the family reunion, the billboards, the media coverage — focused on the feel-good vibes of Snyder's return. That was fine and necessary and appropriate. But the Wildcats need to move past all that stuff this year, and it's not immediately clear if they will.

So, here we are. One program is brimming with bubble-gum positivity, while the other is shrouded in sentimentality. Those things may be inherently good and non-controversial, but I'm not sure they're very interesting.

Football is entertainment. It's "Inception" with pricier tickets. My favorite coaches are the ones who view themselves as characters in the drama, the ones who don't take themselves too seriously.

Whatever you think of Mark Mangino, he was good for football in this state. For K-State fans, he was a wonderful villain. He was human — a little too human, maybe — but his flaws made him interesting.

Now, maybe he was a monster. I don't know. I don't want to romanticize cruelty or condone the behavior that led to his ouster. I just hope we haven't filed away the rough edges that make football so compelling.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, hubris is alive and well. Tommy Tuberville, who replaced the eccentric and entertaining Mike Leach at Texas Tech, hasn't let the transition keep him from speaking his mind.

"If we get into a game and find a team that can't cover anybody," Tuberville said, "we're going to throw it 100 (times)."

We need some of that around here. Not controversy, necessarily — just something to thicken the plot. Because as much as KU and K-State needed coaches who could calm the waters, they also need someone who can make a splash.